October 21, 2005

Drive My Car

By | October 21, 2005

Having a car at college is a wonderful thing. It allows endless midnight trips to Wegmans, freedom from scrounging up rides home at every break, and not having to plan your schedule around catching a bus that may or may not leave at 8:09. And in my case, I have free parking. So why not have a car?

That was my thinking when I bought a used VW Bug this summer. It was cute, the price was right, and I had no reason not to have immediate transportation anywhere I wanted to go. I was wrong in so many ways. One thing I did not think about was that if you have a car, you can also get tickets. Seeing as I have a clean record, getting tickets never occurred to me. How was I supposed to predict that Ithaca would turn me into a driving monster, racking up four tickets in the past month? Granted not all of these were moving violations. Cornell also provides no parking whatsoever for people who don’t need to park on campus all the time, and subsequently don’t have an A,B,C,D,E, F, H, Z, Q or Y permit. They feel the right to give parking tickets to anyone and everyone. When I argued against a ticket because there was no sign visible, I was informed, “It is more likely that unless you see a sign that specifically says you may park in a space, you may not legally park there.” Oh, thanks for the heads up. It would have been convenient to know this before I, like any normal person, spent time looking for the sign that restricted parking. Needless to say, having a car is beginning to look less and less convenient.

I also made the silly assumption that my car would always work. When one discovers problems with the car, however, getting around becomes harder. When I have made three trips to Bill Cooke Imports in the span of two weeks, and paid them the tidy sum of $500 dollars to fix my car and get a key “that will only work for my car and no other” (Gee really? Thanks!) I begin to see that having a car at college may be more trouble than it’s worth. The benefits of getting around seemed to diminish with every hundred dollars I shelled out to be able to do it.

In spite of all this, I never assumed that my car would not make it back to Ithaca should I ever leave (which I did for fall break.) When on the way home I noticed that the car just wasn’t running, and that I was still in the middle lane of the Mass Pike, I began to get a little worried. I decided to pull over, and when I did I noticed a burning smell, and turned off the car, cursing the day I brought it into my world. Not wanting to call a tow truck, I eventually got it to drive a whopping 35 miles an hour in the breakdown lane until I arrived at the next gas station, where upon explanation I was informed that it was “definitely the tranny” by two confident donut and convenience store cashiers inside. Super. After three hours of waiting for a substitute car (care of my amazing parents) to get me back to school, my broken bug was driven slowly, very slowly, to the nearest body shop. The next morning I got a call. There was good news! It was not the “tranny,” but my clutch was completely shot. Really super.

And so now, my car is in rehab for a little R&R. The old family car is creaking around up here in Ithaca, waiting for its turn to get some parking tickets and break down. And with my luck, it’s only a matter of days.

Related

ByOctober 24, 2005

With the World Series in full swing I thought it would be appropriate to acknowledge the best baseball films. However, on second thought there have been about a billion lists about the top baseball flick (Bull Durham, The Natural, etc.) so to switch things up I thought I would focus attention on films that have some sort of baseball aspect to them but aren’t centered around the sport. So without anything further here’s the rundown of “best baseball moments in movies that aren’t about baseball.” I know it may seem as stupid as those White Sox uniforms from the 1970s, but don’t blame me for trying. 5. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) “Hey batta batta batta hey batta batta batta SWING batta!” It’s not surprising that native Chicagoan John Hughes would include a trip to Wrigley Field in Ferris’s much storied day off. Seriously, what is better than skipping school on a perfect day and taking a game? Just don’t be like ultimate party pooper Ed Rooney: -“What’s the score?” Other Guy: Nothin’ nothin’. -Who’s winning? Other Guy: The Bears. 4. Finding Forrester (2000) William Forrester and Jamal Wallace seem to have nothing in common besides a skill in writing and living on the same street-corner. However when they share a quiet moment on the field of Yankee Stadium long after the players and crowd have left, you sense the immense generation and culture gap that has been bridged between the two. For this reason alone, this careful and pensive scene provides one of the great subtle tributes to the sport of baseball. 3. Super Troopers (2001) “Will you move that gigantic cotton candy?” OK, this highlight of little-league baseball spectator angst has little to nothing to do with baseball, but that doesn’t stop it from being hilarious now does it? This is probably the funniest thing to happen at a little league game since I tried to play T-ball in Kindergarten (I failed miserably just to let you know). Oh well, “How’s the view from sugar heaven, bitch?” 2. City Slickers (1991) Leave it to huge baseball fan Billy Crystal to deliver some of the best tributes to the sport. When Crystal describes his “best day” of his life as a young boy going to a game in Yankee Stadium (his first one in color as he describes it), it gives a poignant reminder of why baseball is so magical; it provides an experience that can be shared with others. Even more interesting is the fact that Crystal’s story isn’t scripted; he actually is reminiscing about his first ball game with his dad. 1. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) This film’s climactic baseball scene is hands down the best baseball (probably all of sports) moment in a non-sports movie. I mean, it has everything you can ask for in a great comedic tribute to baseball. In an attempt to stop an assassination Leslie Nielsen disguises himself first as opera singer Enrico Pallazzo to bungle the national anthem then the home plate umpire as he finds nearly every type of baseball contraband imaginable but no gun. This is all followed by a huge bench-clearing brawl and a brainwashed Reggie Jackson attempting to kill Queen Elizabeth II. My personal favorite aspect of this scene occurs as Nielsen progressively gets more theatrical in calling strikes eventually capping of his performance with a moonwalk and split.Archived article by Mark RiceFilm Editor

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The Cornell University Library opens a new exhibition today titled “Vanishing Worlds, Enduring People: Cornell Library’s Native American Collection”. The exhibition features a selection from a collection of 40,000 books and materials documenting aspects of Native American art, languages, sociological data and major historical events.